NPD Group Blog » Ping: Think Amazon, not Facebook

Ping: Think Amazon, not Facebook

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
By Ross Rubin, Executive Director, NPD Connected Intelligence

Many speculated that Apple might use its September event to roll out a fully cloud-based music service. Indeed, I’ve noted previously that the iTunes interface took on a decidedly more Web-like appearance with iTunes 9, and the acquisition of Lala by Apple hinted that Apple might move further in that direction.

There was no cloud-based music service, but Apple did move closer to accepting cloud strength with the notion of a rental-only model on the new Apple TV. (See my colleague Paul Gagnon’s take.) There was, however, something brought forward from the Lala legacy. Ping, a new social network is focused on music, but only music available on iTunes, which could exclude both The Beatles as well as some of the more obscure artists.

Some have questioned the notion of a social network focused on music, but we have seen a number of companies trying more media-focused approaches, including Apple’s competitor Microsoft, which married music and social networking with Zune in the name of discovery. Others include Copia and GoodReads, which have created social network for books, and gdgt, which has done it around electronics community reviews and desirability. Facebook, of course, is a platform for sharing all manner of media, but media discovery hasn’t been well-integrated.

What Zune mostly has over Ping is the ability to share full-length tracks with other subscribers. Discovery is an incentive to keep paying the membership fee. With Ping, there is no membership fee, but one is limited to sharing 30-second samples. In this respect, Ping is really more like the community reviews and forums on Amazon that help to drive commerce. Indeed, Ping is integrated into the iTunes store on the iPod touch and iPhone. It’s social networking not as an ad-supported end, but in support of commerce.

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